"Year of the Dragon" (1985)

The Chinese eat the head

The United States were found by the Protestants and in the beginning all of the major political and business places were occupied by WASPs. For a long time, the Catholics were not allowed into the major positions, but being white, they were able to occupy the middle posts. The Chinese were quite different. They died massively during railroad construction of the XIXth century, but were not allowed to be photographed, unlike the Irish labor.

The Chinese were constantly kicked out of the US, but they methodically gained small territories in almost every major American city – Chinatowns. There, they methodically raised money and, after some time, started to outplay Americans on their own fields: entering and sponsoring the major universities, buying up real estate, entering prestigious funds and clubs, and sponsoring political parties. The same words could be said about Chinese organized crime.

Nevertheless, the Chinese en masse were not fully integrated into American society. They were ready to deal with «The White Devil», but were still living into their neighborhoods, where there were no American laws or customs. Americans take a refusal to accept their values as a major insult. You could easily be Polish American, Russian American, African American, Chinese American and etc., but if you refuse to add American to your nationality, then you would never become a trustworthy member of an American society.

In the 1980s, all American movies and news were full of panic, that the Japanese are buying up the US. Yes, for some time the Japanese economy almost succeeded in overtaking the US economy, but we all now the final result. Conversely, the «yellow n…...s» were quietly expanding in the US for a long time, and their effort began to bear fruit in the 1980s. The Chinese are masterfully playing the dumb and their truce with NYPD able them to do business smoothly. But one day the Chinese youth gangs are starting to terrorize the city and one of the most respected Chinese bosses is brutally murdered.

The explosion of violence leads to appointment of the toughest cop – captain Stanley White – as the chief of Chinatown police. He is a stereotypical Blue-collar American: impulsive, intolerant and disdainful towards anyone, who is richer/smarter/more educated. Also he is a member of the lowest White American class – Polish Americans, who are always heroes of the American jokes – and, even more, he is a Vietnam veteran.

He, as a lot of other veterans, is sure that the war was lost because of the lousy politicians and Stanley White is obsessed with idea to prove his toughness, by turning Chinatown into another typical American neighborhood. Captain Stanley White starts to recreate the Vietnam War into one particular neighborhood: insulting Chinese top men, conducting Search and Destroy police operations and, generally, «bombing Chinatown into the Stone Age».

On the other hand, the top men of Chinese Triads are also changing, because the new generation of Chinese are starting to take over, who had contacts with the US and partly absorbed the American values. Such, as young and ambitious Joey Tai, are no longer to content to wait for «4000 years» and they are starting a brutal passage to power and bloody war to overtake the drug operations from the Italians.

Chinese Americans, who are trying to become full Americans, are in the middle of the «battle theater». The Chinese consider them traitors and the Americans treats them, in the best situation, as sexy toys (reporter  neighborhood) and, in the worst situation, as low level servants and objects for racist jokes (young police officer Herbert Kwong). But there are no neutral sides in the total war and soon all would become a meat for the grinder.

These total war would be a full clash between Chinese and American mentality: «4000 years» against «history void»; patience against impulsiveness; numbers against fire power and, the most important of all, ability to sustain high casualties against fixation on short-term goals. Even remember, that B-52 bomber jet was perfectly able to turn jungles into deserts, but was unable to cut Ho Chi Minh trail.

And Stanley White, as 18 years ago, would lose everything and, perhaps, would be able to cut one out of one thousand heads of the Chinese «Lernaean Hydra». After edgy «Heaven's Gate» (I consider a not-so-good glued mosaic of some outstanding pieces), Michael Cimino made a great film about cultural clash in NYC, spicing it up by good action and charismatic actors. I recommend to watch «Year of the Dragon» in a pair with «Black Rain» by Ridley Scott.